Chapter 7 - Outbreak
Imperialist Research Base, Gozan IV
Yar'jeem donned the Enviro-suit and strode out of the clean room, looking vaugely like a Marine in power armor.
Wow, she thought, all that college and internship time paid off, and here I am, working in one of the best research facilities to ever exist since the First Kushan Empire.
Striding past the contaminant scanners she walks to a door in the all white and Plexiglas inner room, pressing a few buttons and waiting. After being cleared by Control, the door opens, where she strides in, now in the Anomalous Materials section. In one of the giant vats, a tube begins pumping in "primordial soup", a mix of proteins, glucose, amino acids, adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP, most of this stuff is from biology cources) simple RNA and DNA sequences, and other biological factors. Now that scanners are online, a small capsule is injected. Coming into contact with the soup the capsule breaks up, revealing beast microbes.
Suddenly the greenish substance begins changing. Slowly the thin soupy solution turns a shade of red, hardening as well, parts begin sticking to the wall and extending root-like structures.
From here she barks a order to one of the techs, to send a electrical charge through the walls of the vat.
The microbes merely slow their growth, and after a few minutes it grows back onto the glass.
Walking over to a control panel he flicks a switch and pumps out oxygen, leaving the beast in hard vacuum.
She paws around for a notepad, moving her gauntleted right hand a bit too far, knocking over her notepad and a Styrofoam cup of water, the water trickling into and mingling with her carefully tabulated notes.
Bending down to pick up the notepad she looks up again, the beast is still fine.
Jotting down a few notes she vents some cyanide gas into the tank. Nothing. Venting methane. Still nothing. Growth continuing.
After pumping in hydrogen's and nebula dust, the beast's growth rate quadruples, overtaking the dozens of electrical charges sent through the structure.
Looking around she panics, and presses the Evac button, waiting before herself evacuating, everybody moving into the HazMat rooms. Removing a key from her pocket she slides it into place and turns the key, pressing the green button, and authorizing high temperature thermite incineration, a emergency procedure in case of microbe or bacterial outbreak. Soon the other room was bathed in heat.
Suddenly several critical mass alarms begin flickering. Door integrity, failing under heat.
And then nothing.
----
4 hours later
The Flytrap hyper spaced into orbit, new orders to rendezvous with the research station and protect it from a rumored Somtaaw attack. Intel had reported that the other carrier group had engaged the Kuun-Lan. The group reported loosing three resource collectors and 2 assault and one ion frigate, but no debris was ever. The gravwell had also vanished, translating into that an entire resourcing convoy had vanished. The resourcer's location beacon had been detected in hyperspace heading towards the station But it was too late, the materializing quantum waveform was plainly visible from kilometers around. The sight that beheld the crew would be...shocking. Damaged wrecks drifted left and right, distress beacons lit everywhere, the screams and pleads for help each overriding the other, into a cacophony of despair.
The research facility registered as beast, an outbreak of some sort. Somehow the beast had broken out of containment. A flight recorder salvaged from a assault frigate revealed the Somtaaw had already been here, and blasted their way through the proxy network. The sensor network had a gaping hole in it, and the recorder also revealed that the resource collectors had made it through the checkpoints to land on the surface, before returning. It was unknown what they had done; the resource collectors had been scrapped before the fleet left. The research station had also been partially overrun, several ground floors had been infected, and anything in the area would have to be destroyed.
Moving into orbit the flytrap prepared a planet-scorcher missile, one of the types used on Kharak. After setting to it to minimum, the missile launches, ion trail streaking through the atmosphere, the missiles outer shielding is burned through, the missile lands near the research base and immolates it in a bath of flame reaching 1500 degrees. Everything on the surface in a 10 mile radius...burned to ashes.
Admiral: Deploy salvage and repair teams. Add these vessels to our task group. It's time to report in. Send to command.
"Research station destroyed. Planet possibly contaminated. Dispatching ground team to locate data codex."